It's Out!

KKI Europe Team chairman, Curtis Clewett, has written a new book: “3G: The Art of Living Beyond Your Life” now available on Amazon websites worldwide (amazon.com, amazon.co.uk, amazon.de, etc.) Timeless KKI principles like “Linking Generations” “Lion and the Bear” and the “Spiritual Capacity of Children” have been written for a broad general audience and viewed through the lens of the Clewett family’s quarter century of KKI adventures in Spain and around the world. 3G is a great introduction to our mission and perhaps a fitting gift for your friends, relatives and supporters. Authoritative yet practical, accurate and fun to read, 3G offers tools and encouragement to grow strong families and leadership teams. Suggested retail: 12.99€ paperback, 5.99€ Kindle version. Discounts available for orders of 5 or more books by writing to: 3gthebook@gmail.com

What others are saying about 3G:

“Easy to read, with lots of treasures and practical applications. It put words on things that we are practicing by intuition.” -Joële Zeller, KKI CLT leader, Yverdon, Switz.

“I can’t remember the last time I read a book in one sitting, but I did with this one.” -Dan Secrist, pastor and author Lacey, WA

“This is really, really thought-provoking stuff with practical application in how we parent, lead and grow others.” -Les Herron, pastor and life coach, Houston, TX

Surely, God has done extraordinary works in our lives through King's kids ministry.
We want to set up a ''souvenir journal'' of his marvelous works in our lives!
Can you send your testimony to this address : ilakki2016@gmail.com
Be blessed as you do this. Check out the trailer‪#‎Unshakable‬

Check out on our Material and Curriculum section, we just posted two excellent bookelts to help you start prayer groups with your children. We used to call them Daniel Prayer Groups in KKI, and it's time to relaunch a new generation of prayer warriors. These materials will help you get started, as they are filled with creative ideas, vision and practical content.

How to prevent drift and come back to our original mission and DNA? What are some practical steps?

God already began speaking to us several years ago about this, through a Scripture in Revelation 3:1-3:

I know all the things you do, and that you have a reputation for being alive—but you are dead. 2 Wake up! Strengthen what little remains, for even what is left is almost dead. I find that your actions do not meet the requirements of my God. 3 Go back to what you heard and believed at first; hold to it firmly. Repent and turn to me again. If you don’t wake up, I will come to you suddenly, as unexpected as a thief.

So we’ve begun working on this issue. Realignment is already in process. We just finished our KKI Leadership meeting in Steenwijk, Netherlands, where we addressed this Mission Drift dimension and tried to identify what are the main drift factors in our midst. Our international leaders reacted very positively to this processing. The following chart shows us which factors are perceived as the most real and which don’t seem to be so dangerous. The highest bars represent what our leaders perceive as the most significant drift risk factors, and the lowest bars representing the least threatening risk factors:

From this chart, we can deduce that our international leaders perceive the loss of our Levitical anointing and the danger that our ministry doesn’t flow anymore from the presence of God as the two main threats. The main theme of our meeting was taken from Exodus 33:15: “Without your presence, we will not go any further.” The lack of parent involvement, the lack of linking between the generations and the lack of supporting community leading to isolation are also among the top five risk factors.

On the other hand, failure to address the spheres of society is not perceived as a threat, nor is the multiplication of KKI expressions. Distance from the rest of YWAM doesn’t seem to be perceived as a major problem either.

Our leaders also mentioned a few other drift risk factors:

In our relationship with God. Lack of intercessory prayer from which we receive the heart of God for countries or situations and calling for specific outreaches; lack of using “teachable moments” to help participants understand and process situations where they have seen God move; decrease in “heart preparation” that is so key to prepare our hearts for any activity.

In our leadership Poor or lacking leadership, sharing of roles in the leadership team, lack of accountability, isolation (losing the culture of relationships and relational contact outside of the outreach context, not enough “gathering” of leaders and families); lack of comprehensive member-care strategies, effective leadership release and recognition (lack of clarity sometimes about the equipping, releasing and recognising of local, national and regional KKI leaders. Can a non-YWAMer be a KKI leader? Can someone who hasn't done PCYM lead a PCYM? Can any base or op-loc appoint their own leader and start a KKI ministry? How are we in KKI processing leadership appointments with the appropriate national or regional YWAM leaders? ...).

In our partnerships: Linking with the Body of Christ and local churches, cooperation with other YWAM ministries (Frontier Mission, Mercy Ministries, Family Ministry…)

Miscellaneous: Kingdom mentality, Heart for the unreached, dysfunctional communication, wanting to be relevant (to churches or society), financial pressures, blurred vision, no support for KKI alumni engaged in the spheres of society…

At the point where we are, I think there are several ways to address potential mission drift. In the next few months, we can:

Clearly communicate what we are sensing to our KKI leaders around the world, exhorting them to consider these drift factors in their own ministries and to take action to correct anything that is going in the wrong direction. Communication should be done extensively through e-mails, Skype calls, Facebook, our new website and blog, personal discussion, videos, teachings in national and regional conferences, in our PCYMs…

Provide questions to be processed and prayed over as a team for our ministries around the world. I will take this Mission True section of my Integration paper to make a little brochure that I will send to every KKI leader around the world.

Continue to encourage alignment in the personal lives of our staff. Are we really living our values on a daily basis?

We intend to take several practical steps in the next few years to bring life and correct any drift tendency. Most of all, we need the grace of God and His Spirit of resurrection, and I believe we also need the prayers and support of the wider YWAM community as we obey the Lord and do our part to move in the right direction. In the next few months:

Our family will begin several years of traveling around the world, living close to our KKI leaders, including our founders. We will do our best to model KKI DNA with them, mentor them and help renew their vision. We will start in the Pacific region, then on to Africa, after which we’ll see where He leads us. Our goal is to bring “oxygen in the body”. Other initiatives of this kind are happening around the world.

We want to organize a KKI leadership workshop in July and August 2016, probably in Ivory Coast, where we could gather some of our KKI founders and leaders that want to invest in this process and develop a common understanding and strategy of where the Lord wants to lead us in this coming season. Thus we want to develop a group of motivators and influencers, a “cohort” that carries this move together. Let me quote Loren Cunningham, himself quoting Tom Marshall, in a letter written in 1993 about necessary changes to avoid drift:

In an organization like YWAM, with over three decades of existence, he said we are clearly not just dealing with structure but with culture, i.e. a YWAM culture. Therefore we must see a change in our cultural ways of doing things in order to see structural change come.

He went on to say that there must be a core of influencers in the mission who will act as motivators for change. They must buy in first, and they must become a movement through which change comes. With a group the size and age of YWAM, everyone is totally immersed in “the culture”.

To have change, it must be deliberate, intentional, and radical or the natural “drift factor” will bring us back to where we are now, even though people embrace new concepts in their heads and hearts. The core group must be totally committed to this change and willing to slug it out and pay the price to see it come. There are, of course, some scriptural guidelines and boundaries that we must not cross.[1]

I underline the aspect of a core group of influencers who will act as motivators for change in a deliberate, intentional and radical way.

We will have our KKI international Leadership Assembly where we expect several hundred people in Ivory Coast, in late August of 2016. This will be a key time to speak out over these issues and concretely and prophetically take a stand.

Dale Kauffman is working on his book with a clear presentation of the history and the values of KKI. Carol Kauffman is also writing a book with early KKI stories illustrating our values. These will be invaluable tools to affirm the foundations and the identity of KKI and correct the drift tendency.

Conclusion

If we do not come back to our roots, we will lose our anointing. And if we lose our anointing, we lose our purpose, our raison d’être. If we want to see a new season of multiplication, we need to realign with our original purpose and strengthen our fundamental values and principles. If we let the Lord search our hearts and ministries, He will show us whatever needs to be strengthened, changed or even cut off. And as we humbly and radically obey, make difficult decisions and receive His correction, I believe His favor and anointing will be renewed, and the best is yet to come.

[1] Darlene Cunningham, History of YWAM Governance, December 2011, working document given to the participants of the Executive Master in leadership of the University of the Nations, San Antonio del Mar, February 2015.

Through the years, KKI has changed. Let us think about the element that drew us to this ministry:? How and why did God call us? Are those elements still present?

I believe we are in danger of losing our anointing, and in some places it may already have happened. Let me suggest some dimensions where we may have drifted, or where we are in danger of drifting:

God first – our Levitical anointing. In many places, worship tends to become just the first part of the program. We need to remember that we have been set apart to worship Him and that whatever we do, He should be our focus. “Bringing joy to God’s heart” is KKI’s purpose. If we drift away from it, we forsake the very reason for our existence.

Continuing without the presence of God. In Exodus 33:15, Moses said, “If your presence does not go with us, do not lead us up from here.” KKI is all about seeking God’s presence, and ministry should flow from this place. If we carry a “program mentality”, we don’t need God’s presence any more. We just go through the motions! The presence of God is our motivation, our main thirst. This is what will touch people around us.

God-led – listening to the Lord with the participants. Our staff certainly continue to listen to the Lord when planning their activities. But a core value is the ownership of the participants. This is their ministry, they have an active role and what a child receives can orient a whole day’s activities. It’s not about planning some times where the participants listen to the Lord as part of the program. Everyone, from the youngest to the oldest, is invited to be sensitive to the Father’s voice - any time, anywhere. KKI needs to recover its prophetic edge and come out of a program mentality where everything is well organized, but where there is no risk-taking, no radical obedience, because there is no need of it – everything has already been planned!

Monogenerational. Many people find it too complicated to gather the generations. It’s easier and more efficient to target only one generation – the teens, the youth, the children. This pragmatic approach, rather than the value-based approach honoring the word of the Lord to us, is a real danger in some of our ministries. It doesn’t mean, though, that we can’t do activities only with teens or with kids. It’s not a choking legalistic approach of doing everything all the time together. Rather it’s about recognizing and honoring the other generations and seeking to partner with them whenever relevant and possible.

Non-involvement of parents. Our approach to discipleship, based on Deuteronomy 6, is lifestyle-based. It should happen in daily life. To be able to live it, we cannot bypass the role and responsibility of the family. How can we get more parents and grandparents involved?

Multiplication of expressions. KKI developed and became very diverse through the years. We began with mostly outreaches and then developed year-round teams where discipleship happens in partnership with families and local churches. Then child evangelism and mercy ministries were added. These new expressions may represent a danger of drift if we are not careful. As Phil Smith said, “One of the primary reasons for mission drift is that people join your organization who are very excited about portions of your vision, but are either opposed to or don’t care about the rest of it.”[1] This is a real danger in some of these expressions. I believe there is place for child evangelism and mercy ministries in KKI, but we need to work out models where our values are not compromised and where people believe in our global mission and don’t use KKI to do what they want without adopting the full DNA! Because of the strong emphasis on meeting the needs of children, whether physical or spiritual, the need can become the call, and this is definitely a drift factor if we are no longer led by what God speaks and does.

Decrease in outreaches. During these last few years, fewer and fewer outreaches are taking place. Some of our ministries geared towards mercy ministries and child evangelism indeed do outreach all-year round. But the kind of outreaches where KKI was taking new ground, making breakthroughs, and radically obeying God seem to be diminishing. Outreaches in the context where children, young people, teenagers, families experience God in powerful ways - this is the pool from which our future staff should come. Because KKI’s vision and values are “better caught than taught”, we need to re-emphasize this aspect.

Decrease in young leaders. Decrease in outreaches may trigger another problem – young people no longer exposed to real KKI DNA are no longer attracted to KKI long-term. This is a drift factor: as our leadership gets older, we tend to lose our prophetic edge. We have good teachings because of our experience, but we lack the capacity to multiply, try new things, take risks… and we are left with a diluted version of KKI, that lacks strength and attractiveness.

When I was twenty-three years old I joined KKI after an outreach where I saw God move like never before. I told myself: “This is the kind of life I want to live! This is what I want to give my life for.” I am still here, twenty-five years later. Without this kind of life-changing experience, our young people will enjoy KKI for perhaps a few years, then move on to other things. This is what we see in many places. Our older leaders are now entering a stage of life where they can be tremendous elders. We have the fathers and mothers, but where are the ongoing sons and daughters?

Decrease in schools and training programs. I am not sure how to classify this one. On the one hand, we’ve seen in Loren Cunningham’s presentation in Singapore[2] and in the document David Hamilton gave us during our Executive Master in leadership in San Antonio del Mar[3] that the number of long term staff increases proportionally to the number of schools. But we have also seen a decrease in registration for our PCYM schools these last few years, leading to school cancellations hesitation for some of our leaders before organizing one again. Others try to find new ways of training.

So, are we drifting because we organize fewer schools and consequently have fewer long-term staff, or are we organizing fewer schools and consequently have fewer candidates because we are drifting? In other words, is the decrease in schools a cause or a result of the drift?

Forgetting to prepare young people for the spheres of society. As far as I can remember, we haven’t put a strong emphasis on this aspect. We were always more focused on the geographical elements and the traditional evangelism/worship/prayer/ service approach to ministry. We weren’t very intentional that KKI as a ministry should primarily seek to influence the spheres of society. Rather, our goal was to equip young people to be able to influence those spheres in the future. This is reflected by our mission statement from the beginning. So when we included worldview (no sacred-secular dichotomy) teaching in our camps, teen leadership programs or pre-teen programmes, or when we held camps that equipped kids with computer skills, video-making skills or primary health care experience... or more recently the material produced by KKI Puerto Rico, we were/are equipping a generation to realize that serving God in education or politics or media is just as “spiritual” as being a pastor or a missionary. But I don’t see this dimension very strong in our midst today. It may not be so much a drift factor as an element we felt should be included from the start without having yet fully developed and modeled it yet.

Team leadership not applied everywhere. In expressions, the ministry is being led by just one person. This is not what we champion and promote. Most often, the person doesn´t necessarily want to lead by themselves. But due to their personality type, or as a result of other leaders having moved on, they are the only ones left to lead. In some cases, particularly when this is a single woman with a strong motherly tendency, it can even become controlling and protective, thus hindering the releasing and “pushing out of the nest” of young leaders who need to be trusted and challenged.

Lack of supporting community. Some of our KKI leaders have found themselves quite isolated, and this is not good in terms of accountability and protection. We need to reemphasize the importance of community life for each of us, whether in a YWAM base setting, a local Church, or a small group… We can’t make it alone!

Distancing ourselves from the rest of YWAM. This is a more challenging issue. The history of KKI within YWAM has not always been easy. Talking with our founder, Dale Kauffman, we recognize many situations in the past where conflicts, misunderstandings or differences of approach have been dealt with inadequately, resulting in the loss of some of our best leaders. I know forgiveness has been extended, but a certain protective distance has been established to prevent further disappointment and hurts. There is a real desire to see a restoration of trust. Our challenge is to communicate not only who we have been in the past, but also who we are now and where we are heading.

I have also sensed some responsibilities on the KKI side, although I haven’t been able to get official confirmation. Unequivocally, I always get the same answer from YWAM leaders: “We love KKI, it’s a great ministry.” They often speak about a certain image they have of KKI, and not necessarily of what KKI is meant to be. Speaking with Alejandro Rodriguez,[4] YWAM leader in Argentina, he confirmed a feeling of “polite distance” or even indifference from the YWAM community. Actually, a lot of people in the new generation of YWAMers don’t even know about KKI.

KKI is no longer championed by the rest of YWAM as it was back in the eighties, and there may be several factors for that: multiplication of trans-national ministries, tendency to highlight the new things - but there may also be a feeling that KKI is “a thing of the past”. We tell the stories of the glorious old days, but we need a new generation with fresh stories to fire the imagination of current leaders. Otherwise, it gives the impression we are just maintaining an old ministry that has lost its anointing, giving it some palliative care before its inevitable death.

This feeling is not worldwide. It mainly reflects some regions or nations in North America, Europe and Africa. Many of our leaders in South America, in Asia or in the Pacific don’t distinguish KKI from YWAM. But still, I think there is a breach that needs to be recognized and closed. At the same time, YWAM regional leaders in Africa have clearly expressed this last year their need of KKI and their desire to build together. If there is drift, perhaps we have not veered to far off yet. And in many places, it has started to be addressed and corrected.

Blurred identity. This comes from different angles. In some places, KKI has developed a strong partnership with local churches and other organizations, launching new initiatives together. These new partnered initiatives may monopolize time and visibility at the expense of KKI itself. Even though a ministry is a KKI expression, people are unsure due to different names and packaging,

In other places, it’s the name, “King’s Kids,” that poses problems. In English-speaking regions King’s Kids denotes a children’s ministry, which turns off teenagers that otherwise may have been interested in joining. The question is regularly addressed during our leadership gatherings. Would a change of name contribute to drift? Would it affect our calling and anointing? Or would it correct some of the drift?

Joining global movements like 4/14 or others may also be tricky and have some dangers, especially if we become so involved that it becomes more important than our own ministry. To illustrate, it’s like a father neglecting his own children and family because he becomes so passionate about something of his own interest.

Are we proud of who we are (in the good sense of the term)? Is our way of doing ministry contributing to its health and growth?

As I was pondering on this last year, I got a picture from the Lord. It was a barrel made up of staves joined together. The problem was that the staves were not all the same length. The barrel could be filled only up to the level of the lowest stave. It represents KKI around the world. The staves represent the values. To get the full KKI anointing, we need to make sure we live out the values the Lord has given us and don’t neglect some of them because they are less appealing or seem less relevant to our vision. Are we in the second generation where it’s already a matter of preferences?

[2] Loren Cunningham, YWAM UofN Growth, pdf document of a Power Point Presentation brought during the YWAM Singapore Gathering, September 2014.

[3] How to start a missions movement (Short section), extract of a Power Point Presentation sent by David Hamilton during the Executive Master in Leadership third intensive in San Antonio del Mar, February 2015.

[4] Skype discussion with Dale Kauffman and the author in January 2015, following a personal discussion of the author with Alejandro in Buenos Aires in December 2014.

King’s Kids was birthed in 1976 in Kona, through Dale and Carol Kauffman and a few other families. During their DTS outreach, they took time to teach the children and teenagers to listen to God’s voice. Thus the children became active participants and took ownership of the ministry as the words they received from God became true. Even the name, “King’s Kids,” was received by a child.

Mission Drift is a book written by Peter Greer and Chris Horst, of HOPE International. They have done an amazing work, researching dozens of organizations, ministries, universities and companies to see which percentage of them have stayed faithful to their original mission. They have tried to identify the factors representing a danger for mission drift, of slipping little by little away from what the founders had in mind when they started. They also give strong recommendations on building safeguards in different elements.

How do Greer and Horst define a Mission True organization?

In its simplest form, Mission True organizations know why they exist and protect their core at all costs. They remain faithful to what they believe God has entrusted them to do. They define what is immutable: their values and purposes, their DNA, their heart and soul.

This doesn’t mean Mission True organizations don’t change. And it doesn’t mean they aren’t striving for excellence. In fact, their understanding of their core identity will demand they change. And their understanding of Scripture will demand they strive for the very highest levels of excellence. But growth and professionalism are subordinate values. To remain Mission True is to adapt and grow, so long as that adaptation and growth does not alter the core identity.[1]

Darlene Cunningham challenged us to read this book during the YWAM gathering in Singapore in September 2014. After reading it and having heard Darlene speak about it during our Executive Master in Leadership in February 2015 in San Diego-Baja, I have become even more convinced that we need to consider this warning seriously and to let the Holy Spirit search our hearts and highlight the way we function as King’s Kids International, as this puts words on something we have been sensing as a Core Leadership Team for several years now.

B. Examples of Mission Drift

The book describes scores of organizations that have drifted from their original mission, like YMCA, Harvard, Yale and many others. Over time, new leadership came in, with new ideas, and new ways of doing things. The Christian aspect became less and less important and at one point they decided to get rid of it. Other times, it is caused by unwise handling of finances, or by inviting business-oriented people onto their board that didn’t understand the DNA of the mission and wanted to run it like a business.

Other companies or organizations are good examples of what it means to stay Mission True: Cru, Compassion, and Intervarsity have stayed committed to their original mission and even improved their effectiveness and clarity of mission through the years.

I would like to highlight one sentence of the book: “The founders’ passion rarely translates to subsequent generations of leadership. Too often, the passions of the first generation become the preferences of the second generation and are irrelevant to the third generation.”[2]

King’s Kids will celebrate its 40th anniversary next year. Are we still in our original mission? Our founders are still here, and we have the chance to have an international fellowship of leaders with a healthy mixture of ages, the younger ones having opportunity to rub shoulders with older ones and draw from their DNA. But we are not immune to mission drift and we need to process together how we can safeguard what we consider as essential.

King's Kids International was born in 1976 in Hawaii through Dale and Carol Kauffman. God led them during their DTS outreach to teach the children of the base to listen to God's voice together with some of the parents and to obey what He would show them. That was the beginning of a movement that spread throughout the nations - children, teenagers and their families were also part of the Great Commission. The waves Loren had seen also included under eighteen, actually a lot of them!

I was excited to walk on the 4k map in our YWAM gathering in Singapore last September. It was a big map, about 20m long and 15m wide certainly one of the biggest I’ve ever seen… I need to say I always loved maps. When I was a child and a teenager, I even used to create my own geography books, copying maps, studying borders, rivers, specific characteristics… I was especially attracted by remote islands or little countries lost in the mountains….

In Singapore, I enjoyed so much this 4k approach, to help us see where we are and where we are not; this gives us so much more insight than traditional maps with the nations of the world. I found this was a strategic tool in using research and intelligence to better define the remaining task in front of us.